Imagine billionaires, CEOs, and hedge fund managers sweating it out in a no-frills gym with air-conditioning outages, a queue for the showers, and a 70-pound bag of rocks for over-the-head lifts, all while SUV limousines and personal security details idle outside. This happened daily a couple of years ago at a Midtown New York gym. "They were very, very loyal," says John Sitaras, the 35-year-old trainer who has a fleet of industry captains as clients. Legends like James D. Robinson III, the leveraged buyout financier immortalized in Barbarians at the Gate, arrived early three days a week and never complained. He even broke a gym record with an 800-pound leg press. (Barbarian or not, Robinson, like the rest of Sitaras's clients, never wielded the sack of rubble.)
Nowadays, getting in shape with Sitaras, a soft-spoken bodybuilder turned physical therapist, is decidedly more luxurious, thanks in part to several clients who financed Sitaras Fitness, his year-old ultramodern club on Manhattan's East Side. Insiders exalt the gym's client service and see it as far more than a tony clubhouse for overachievers—it's a life-altering fitness regime and a secret they'd like to keep quiet.
The gym is unmarked from the street, tucked away on the twelfth floor of a high-rise. It's discreet enough for Jules Kroll, 66—chief executive of the billion-dollar security company Kroll, Inc.— who enthuses, "If you want to have a virtually private workout, you can achieve that." At the heart of the facility are vast racks of free weights and 17 strength-training machines that each target a single muscle, some of which Sitaras custom-designed. Newfangled exercise gizmos that talk back are nowhere to be found. "When clients are on the gym floor, they're doing what really works: hard work with good standard equipment and a great exercise routine," Sitaras says. "Nothing fancy." Except for the $45,000 Veletron stationary bike, a computerized ventilation system that circulates purified air, and Elan hi-fi speakers that pipe in personalized playlists. A phalanx of Lifecycle cardio machines looks out over the club's sprawling terrace garden, which blooms with hydrangeas in the summer. (The $92,000 landscaping tab was picked up by a generous member who, coincidentally, maintains coveted 8:00 A.M. training sessions with Sitaras himself.)
Barry F. Schwartz, 58, general counsel of Ron Perelman's investment holding company, MacAndrews & Forbes, Inc., explains the gym's all-business appeal: "People are there to work out. You don't go there to chat with other people. You don't go there to have a smoothie." While many members have business and philanthropic connections in common, the gym isn't a place for networking—time is too precious. Sitaras requires that members average at least two one-hour training sessions per week, a quota that most exceed despite the demands of their jobs. (The gym has a client as young as 15—he's a billionaire—but most are careerists between 35 and 55; the oldest is the august venture capitalist Fred Adler, 82.)
